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"GENTLEMEN OF ALEPPO" 427
part also in matters outside of commerce. Not only
were its agents British Consuls, but for a long time
it was at the whole cost of the British Embassy in
Constantinople. In its time it was, in fact, a Company
which represented the State in wellnigh all
things.
There are various little known - books of the
eighteenth century in which may be found references
to the important English post at Aleppo. One of
these old books, entitled Travels in ' various parts of
Asia as far as the Euphrates,' was written by Alexander
Drummond of Kilwinning (by his writings a
worthy and likeable Scottish gentleman), who afterwards
became Consul at Aleppo. Very interesting
it is to read of life in the British post at Aleppo
a hundred and eighty or two hundred years ago.
One finds the names of Mr Consul Wakeman, Mr
Consul Pollard, Mr Chaplain Hemming, Mr Chitt}',
and " other gentlemen of Aleppo"; one reads also of
their social intercourse with the Agents of the Dutch
and French Factories ; of how they kept " thermometer
tables" of the weather; and how, too, "all had
the fever of this cursed place." One learns further
that in the hhan was an apartment officially designated
the " Library of the Most Worshipful the
British Levant Company,"—for a certain stately completeness
of equipment, as well as formality of phrase,
runs through everything pertaining to the Company.
Entering here one day— as he had often done before
—Alexander Drummond discovered, to his great
satisfaction, a piece of ancient Greek sculpture, with
an inscription, casually built into the wall. It had
come from a demolished Greek building to which
those who built the khan had gone for materials. In
such surroundings the exiled " gentlemen of Aleppo,"
when the mood took them, pored over tomes provided
by a considerate Company for their improvement and
diversion, and wondered just who it was in London
selected the books.
The Factory had summer residences at Guroum and